Morning Notes

Girl Scout Cookie Sales Start Tonight — As a reminder, Girl Scout Cookie booth sales start at 3:00 today in Arlington. The first day of booth sales might be a bit soggy, as a wintry mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain is expected to start early this afternoon.

School Boundary Petition Started — A petition asking for various changes to the Arlington Public Schools boundary review process has collected more than 75 signatures. [iPetitions]

AP Scores Edge Up for APS Students — The average Advanced Placement exam score for Arlington Public Schools students edged up from 2.88 in 2011 to 2.89 last year. In 2010, however, the average for APS was 3.08. The national average is 2.83, on a 1 to 5 scale. [Sun Gazette]

DJO, Marymount Sign Baseball Agreement — Bishop O’Connell High School and Marymount University have finalized a joint use agreement for the high school’s new baseball field. “The future of Catholic education depends on strong partnerships between our high schools and universities,” said outgoing Bishop O’Connell President Kathleen Prebble. [Arlington Catholic Herald]

Arlington Homes For <$500k –A real estate blog has found 15 “starter homes” under $500,000 on the market in Arlington. “All of the properties… come with at least one parking space,” writes Amy Rose Dobson of Curbed. “Most of them have just entered the market within the past week and will probably move fast.” [Curbed]

Each University gets to decide what score they will accept for credit and the requirements can differ between programs/majors:

“There is no “passing grade,” but colleges and universities often extend credit to students scoring 3, 4 or 5 on the exams.”

Also, “Among tests taken by Arlington students last spring, 59 percent were graded at 3 or higher…”

novasteve

The new trend is for colleges to stop accepting AP credits. They make less money if students enter with some credits already. I believe Dartmouth is trying this approach.

speonjosh

Steve, it appears that many students do not take AP exams with the hope of getting college credits. Many of them don’t seem to even know that it is a possibility. They take the exams because it improves their odds of getting into the colleges they apply to. And like JohnB points out, colleges decide what grade to award credit for. (That’s two sentences in a row ending in prepositions for those keeping track.)

snarl

thats the kind of nonsense up with which i will not put!

Aaron

Those classes are likely more rigorous than whatever the non-AP alternative was and the students who scored below a 3 on the exam will probably be better off when tackling real college classes in the future than the kid who didn’t challenge himself or herself at all.

With that said, there could still be the problem of Arlington AP teachers not being able to communicate the course material to their assigned classes competently, but that would take a lot more effort to investigate than simply looking at objective test results.

m

No necessarily – there are other factors that could account for low scores other than the whole class being wasted. (rimshot!).

AP Humor Grader

2

Kleio

Oh wonderful, Girl Scout cookies. Just the thing to cheer up a gray day. Time to stock up on addictive Thin Mints! Supporting a terrific youth organization, as well.

bobbytiger

A “starter home” for $ 1/2 million. Welcome to Arlington.

Frustrated

The boundary petition is no surprise. APS presented options at their last community meeting that weren’t ever shown to the public before. They have several maps that move children who live close to their school to a school farther away, while keeping planning units that are far from their school unchanged. No one I know has heard a response from any feedback submitted.